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Bill Keller

Selling amnesty to the House GOP is going to be mighty tricky

That pessimism is natural; the House is the place where ideas go to die. But it needn’t happen this time. If President Obama and Congressional leaders play their cards right, as they are doing so far, immigration reform — real immigration reform — can clear Congress this year.

Selling the measure to the Republican House will require close attention to substance, marketing and legislative tactics.

For starters, advocates won’t be using the word “amnesty.” Personally I think it’s a fine word, which has traditionally meant an act of forgiveness for the sake of social harmony. But in the meanspirited Republican/Fox News lexicon, “amnesty” has come to mean coddling criminals. So we will all talk of “a path to citizenship.” …

This time around, Democrats should be at least as ardent about enforcement as they are about legalization of the undocumented. That is essential to winning Republican votes, but it is also the way to avoid a future cycle of anti-immigrant populism. …

The real weakness is internal enforcement. There is an electronic system to verify that businesses hire only workers who are legally entitled to be here, but 90 percent of employers don’t use it. Both Obama and the Senate “Gang of Eight” call for more rigorous checks on employment, including a forgery-proof, theft-proof identification system, which is overdue.

Comments

Of course they won’t because they’re despicable, lying scumbags who are underhanded low-lifes.

Personally I think it’s a fine word, which has traditionally meant an act of forgiveness for the sake of social harmony.

Leftists have destroyed every word that once meant something decent. It is the drive of leftism to destroy the language and remove all traces of actual meaning, reducing us to nothing but grunts on a syntax. You people are, as I have said, despicable, lying scumbags.

But in the meanspirited Republican/Fox News lexicon, “amnesty” has come to mean coddling criminals.

It means worse than just “coddling”. It means becoming an accessory to the crime the way the left and the Vichy Right have going.

So we will all talk of “a path to citizenship.” …

Illegals (who are already citizens of other countries) have not forced themselves on America to seek citizenship. They have forced their way into our nation (against our wishes) in order to merely steal residency and the ability to work. To offer these criminals (who spit on the idea of American sovereignty every single day) any sort of path to legal residency, work status, or worst of all and beyond anhy reason, citizenship, is to aid and abet an invasion (which is all that one can describe tens of millions forcing their presence on our nation) and is TREASON, not amnesty. Any American who holds American citizenship in such low regard taht he thinks we should be forced to print up citizenships for criminals who already hold citizenships in one or more other countries, just because the criminals refuse to leave our nation, should have his own citizenship revoked and be deported with the criminal invaders he is aiding and abetting.

If we are going to have the people, we might as well have the real estate.

Wander on February 4, 2013 at 11:34 PM

If they become territories, clean up their act and learn to respect the Constitution and Bill of Rights I’d support their eventual statehood, but only if there is a resurgence of respect for freedom and liberty in the world and less statism. The way America is headed right now, no way, no amnesty, and no new territories or states, especially ones that are so violent and socialist.